Quakers believe that there is some of God in every person. Therefore it follows that one must treat other people with respect. The Rainbow School is a Quaker school based on this philosophy. It is run as a cooperative by the parents of the students and the Fredonia Friends Meeting. The basic operating principles, shared by all Friend's schools, are:

The Rainbow School was founded in the fall of 1979 by Faith Woolson and Linda Waggy. These mothers had become disillusioned with the public school system, and decided that they should stop complaining about it and do something. The summer before the school opened, Faith and Linda watched their four children play, work and relate to each other. The kids generated many projects independently. When left to their own devices, they solved problems creatively. The kids were often directed by other kids, and they didn't mind following directions if they understood what the point was and why the activity was useful.

The Quaker Meeting House in Arkwright, which was formerly a Grange Hall, was the original site of Rainbow School. The school was kid-paced but not kid-directed. During those early years, school was often held at Linda Waggy's home, which was a cabin in the woods. It was very isolated--one had to cross a creek to reach it. The woods and creek were used as a classroom for lessons in biology, natural history, and science. Many children learned to read curled up in the second floor loft of the cabin. The kids also spent time at Faith's house to learn from the horses, goats, and the garden. Linda was an artist, so they frequently visited other artist's studios so the kids could see them at work.

Currently, Faith Woolson is the teacher of fourteen children, ages 5-14. Less than half the students are Quakers, and they come from a variety of backgrounds. School is held in the basement of the Methodist Church in Fredonia. They have a classroom and frequent use of the preschool room across the hall and the old gym/auditorium. Faith teaches for the fun of it: she doesn't draw a salary. She feels that if she were paid, people couldn't afford the tuition. The parents pay about $35.00 per month per child. This covers rent, insurance and supplies. Many would contend that a classroom with fourteen children is a luxury we couldn't afford today. However, Faith and parent volunteers fill the roles of classroom, remedial, and special teachers; administrators, secretaries, bus drivers, and even janitors. It actually costs approximately $8,000 per student per year for a public education in New York State.

Faith believes that learning is a multi-step process. The children have an experience, and you give them terms to explain it. Then you give them more experiences while you explain with the new terms. Next they must relate the concepts to other things they've learned and apply the new knowledge in some way. Finally, when they have really integrated it, they teach it to someone else. The kids take many field trips throughout the year to provide opportunities for this kind of learning. They often write and perform plays. Instead of just giving a test, Faith often has the children write questions. Then the entire group critiques the questions, and Faith adds a couple of essay questions.

A major theme unit this year dealt with Africa. The kids really enjoyed the taped story, "Gift of the Tortoise", and soon found other tapes and books with an African theme. Many art projects naturally followed; masks, kente cloth patterns and designs, finger puppets, maps of Africa and paper mache globes of the world. They learned the African games, Virlani Ringi Ring and Zip-Boing. Mime stories from "Hippo was Hairy" were performed. A field trip was planned to hear Temujin, an African American storyteller in a local Art's Council production. Lizzie Hammond, a drummer and singer from Ghana, was in the area and visited the Rainbow School. Geography lessons featured the African continent in general, and more specifically Ghana, Egypt, and South Africa. Social studies stressed the African-American connection, and dealt with slavery, the underground railroad, Black History Week, and famous African Americans. The children learned to sing some spirituals. At the end of the unit, they invited their parents to an African festival; with a play, songs, games and African food.

The teacher's role at the Rainbow School is that of a facilitator and motivator, not a professional explainer or lecturer. She makes connections between ideas so the children will see more connections. She tries to ask the right questions and not to get in the way of children learning. Faith tries to provide open-ended materials that stimulate exploration. She found that sometimes scarcity helps spur the creative process. Recently a puppeteer came in to help the kids make puppets. When it was time to paint the puppets, the only paints left were weird colors no one wanted. The kids experimented with mixing in small amounts of different colors, noting the proportions used, until they were able to produce more desirable colors. Shortages of materials can also nurture sharing, cooperation, and good group dynamics.

The idea of a one-room schoolhouse is not new. Faith finds that the children in a multi-age grouping are less egocentric. Their outlook is more balanced and they have a better perspective on the world. The children learn a lot from each other. The older kids delight in teaching and looking out for the younger ones, while the younger kids really admire the older and thrive on the attention and care they get from them. Faith doesn't have to repeat the same topics year after year. Her fourth graders this year are already through eighth grade math because they are usually grouped with the older kids. All ages pick up different levels of any subject presented. For example, they recently completed a unit on balance, air pressure and the properties of a vacuum. The youngest children learned that air is really something that takes up space. The middle group learned the concepts of balance and vacuums. The older kids applied what they learned to a science fair with a weather theme.

Over the years, Faith has taught many children who might have been considered learning disabled in a public school. She believes that these kids just need to learn at their own pace and learning style. With her small group she is able to find a way to teach each child. At the Rainbow school there are no structured grade levels, so the pressure is off the child. They can progress at different rates in different subject areas. They can master each concept or skill, and are not pushed along in order to stay with the group. A quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. is featured prominently in the classroom, and is the most basic rule of conduct at the Rainbow School. It reads:

Parents at the school participate a great deal in the education of their children. All help out at least two hours a week, but many are much more regularly involved in the school. Faith says that each parent has something important to teach, even if they don't know it yet. Besides the teacher there is almost always a parent present during school hours, usually one in the morning and another in the afternoon. Because the school is so small, it has the kind of ties experienced in a large extended family or a little village. Since the parents are present so often, they get to know each child as a person. All the children have many adult role models besides their own parents. The families often socialize outside of school, and share babysitting and even gardens. This provides a support system and reduces stress on individual parents.

Another rule is that one should clean up after oneself and help others to clean up; also that no means no; and finally that students must listen to the adult who's with them, whether it is Faith or a parent volunteer. The kids are involved in discussing and setting rules each year. Over the years, different groups of kids have experimented with setting rewards for good behavior or punishment for bad, but these systems were short lived. The kids usually ended up policing themselves; reminding each other of the rules. They found that everything worked better all around when they behaved. The day I visited the school, I found that any behaviors that were the least disruptive or annoying were quickly curbed by a quiet word from another student or a look from Faith.

Breathing from your center is a technique which is stressed at the school. Each child is taught to visualize themselves as calm, centered and grounded; able to think clearly and act. This exercise can be useful in preparation for sports, before a musical or dramatic performance, in times of stress, and in any emergency. Faith hopes that all the Rainbow kids will gain a sense of empowerment and see themselves as agents of change, that they will find a place for themselves in the world, and will look at learning as an exciting adventure.

I recently spoke to a young woman who was a former Rainbow student through the sixth grade, and is now a Senior at a public high school. A gifted student, she notices a high proportion of Rainbow kids receiving scholarships and awards, and participating in special drama or musical productions in the area. She loved her years at the school and misses the wonderful field trips and the self-directed learning. She remembers writing a schedule of academic work for herself first thing in the morning, getting Faith's approval, and finishing everything before lunch to be free to read or work on special projects in the afternoon. She said her most important lessons from the Rainbow School were how to be a good person and how to really get along with other people.

A DAY AT RAINBOW SCHOOL

Besides talking a lot to Faith about the school, I actually spent a full day there this past spring. As the kids arrived, they put their things away and found things to occupy them while waiting for the others. One mother stopped in on her way to work to lead an opening meditation. The kids brought rugs to the gym and sat in a circle on the floor. She asked them to visualize a dot, symbolizing them, and a circle around the dot, which was the world. Then they imagined the color of love in the center, which grew until the dot and the circle--themselves and the world--blended in love. After the guided meditation, the children shared what they had experienced. Even the youngest had something to say about what they had seen or felt.

Then the kids split into two groups, the younger ones (5-8) and the older ones (9-14). Another mother had arrived, and she and Faith worked with the younger group in the classroom, where they were involved in activities in centers, both individually and in small groups. The classroom had desks grouped in the center. There was a round table for group work, a reading corner, dramatic and imaginative play area, a science center, a computer, a chalkboard, reference books, maps, and many art supplies and educational materials throughout the room.

Faith sent the older students into the preschool room across the hall and asked them to show me their homework assignments. They sat or laid on mats on the floor, and told me about the assignment: to draw a house plan with at least 3 acute angles, at least 3 obtuse angles, and as many right angles and curves as needed, but only 4 sets of parallel lines,1 rectangle, and 1 triangle. The kids were excited about their drawings, explaining them to me and to each other. There was none of the usual push for the adult's attention--they valued each other's opinion as much as mine. I didn't have to check whether they completed the assignment correctly, because they evaluated their own and each other's drawings in a very positive way. Some discovered that they had done an elevation or side profile of a house instead of a floor plan, so they hurried across the hall to get paper and pencils and began floor plans. The kids who had originally completed floor plans liked the idea of elevations and began work on them. Creative juices were flowing, and soon they were adding multiple stories to their houses, including indoor pools, video arcade rooms and satellite dishes. Some began plans of the grounds and added windmills, water wheels, and solar panels as energy sources. These kids were productively engaged in this project for over an hour with no direction from me or their teacher.

We had a mid-morning snack at 10:00. The next activity tackled by the older group was Haiku poetry. With no introduction to the concept of Haiku, Faith gave the group a book of Haiku poetry and asked them to read some poems and look for patterns. They disappeared into the gym for a while, occasionally sending someone to Faith with a guess or question. With a few thought provoking comments from their teacher, they were able to distinguish the pattern on which Haiku are based (17 syllables). Then Faith told them that a Haiku should deal with nature and should paint a visual picture in the mind of the reader. She asked them to write some Haiku, then switch poems with another student, read and draw a picture of the other's poem. They went to the classroom to work on them, and came up with some pretty interesting poems and interpretive drawings.

In the meantime, the younger children gathered in the preschool room. They had recently been on a field trip to a Blue Heron rookery. One of the children had brought in a Peterson's guide to bird nests, and this morning's project was to build some bird nests. First, they discussed different kinds of nests from the book. Originally the intention was to go outside and collect some materials for the nests, but it was raining, so Faith told them they would have to make do with what they could find inside. Then she left the room. One boy had brought an egg carton and some hay to use for his nest. I expected the other children to ask me for help, since there were no other materials in the room. However, they talked about it and came up with some ideas. During the next hour, they made many trips across the hall to gather materials from the classroom. Usually one or two would go and bring back extra materials in case anyone else wanted them. They used scissors, masking tape, markers, cardboard, paper and plastic cups, tissues, and scraps of paper. They shared materials and cooperated beautifully. A few asked for help cutting holes in the plastic cups, but I was surprised at the independence of even the five year old children. Some ended up with multi-level bird motels connected by tunnels, while others had more organic looking constructions.

Back in the classroom, the older kids were using history books and the encyclopedia for their history projects. They were to choose an important historical event, research it, and eventually make a diorama depicting it. A leisurely lunch was next. Faith found that each group of kids set their own pace and schedule; but through the years all have enjoyed a long lunch hour to relax, socialize, and engage in free play. I watched one of the older boys sit at the computer to help the younger children with an educational game during free time. After this break, the kids are refreshed and ready for two more good hours of learning.

In the afternoon, the older kids were scheduled for a field trip. In a few weeks, the entire Rainbow School and some of their parents were going on their end of the year trip. They would spend four days at a Quaker Meeting House in Cleveland and visit the Art Institute, a Children's Museum, the Zoo and the Historical Society. Today a parent with a van was coming to take them shopping for the trip at Quality Markets, followed by a tour of the store. After lunch, they started menu planning and a shopping list. They took calculators with them to the store for comparison shopping.

The five and six year old children engaged in some dramatic play in the classroom. They decided to make a store. They found toys and other objects to sell, made price tags, and even made paper money to spend. I accompanied the seven and eight year olds across the hall to do some math. They were working on multiplying with borrowing, using a chart for the ones and tens. Each child made up problems and put them on the board for the others to solve. Some kids had memorized the multiplication tables, while others used a system to count groups of numbers. All understood the concept of multiplication, and were quickly catching on to the idea of carrying. The kids also made up their own homework problems, and everyone copied them from the board.

Soon the older kids returned from their Quality trip. They told us that they had learned on the tour that Quality is heated entirely from hot air recycled from the coolers. They also informed us that they had gone almost entirely for generic products while shopping, because those were the best buys. They had used some of the money to buy a pizza from the deli to bring back and share with the younger kids. This was a big hit, but they had to decide exactly how many pieces each child could have before they dug in.

It was nearing the end of the school day, and time for games in the gym. Faith said that every group of kids she has had over the years has made up their own version of a game. This is necessary because the age span would make playing by the rules unfair for the younger children. This group had designed their own kickball game. There were no teams. The older kids would usually start with the positions of the pitcher and basemen. They were easy on the younger ones, bending the rules, giving them breaks so they could be successful. That day they let the littlest girl kick a standing ball after she failed to connect with a moving one. The basemen act as coaches and tell the runners when to go. It is allowable for more than one person to be on base at a time, just in case someone fails to run or needs a running partner. When a kicker or runner is out, they just trade positions with a baseman or outfielder, who then gets a turn kicking. Since there are no teams, there is no score either. Everyone just plays for the fun of it, and believe me they had a riot! It was a great way to end the day.

I think the Rainbow kids are getting a great education. I was impressed by the independence and creativity of the students, the wisdom of the teacher, and the cooperative family feeling at the Rainbow School. I believe that some of the philosophy and many of the methods of the Rainbow School could be employed in public schools to improve the learning process.